Tom Mackay

Runs Lento Agency from wherever. Sports nut. Brand strategy expert. Currently building brands between time zones.

The Weekly Rundown: Getting found when AI does the searching

The Rundown

Oct 8, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: Getting found when AI does the searching

Also: thrifting as a slot machine with a conscience, the industry's quiet fear of colour, and Oat Cult answering Quaker's entrance with a medieval horror film.

Tom Mackay

AI search won't wait: BrandViz on the new search era

Deep Dive

Oct 7, 2026

AI search won't wait: BrandViz on the new search era

What gets your brand recommended by ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini? Two former Googlers explain where to start.

Tom Mackay

The Weekly Rundown: Why every founder is posting and almost nobody is listening

The Rundown

Oct 1, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: Why every founder is posting and almost nobody is listening

Also: Gap wanting to be in the room when you pick your favourite, Peloton proving the best endorsement doesn't feel like one, and the fonts actually worth licensing in September.

Tom Mackay

Why every founder is posting and almost nobody is listening

Opinion

Oct 1, 2026

Why every founder is posting and almost nobody is listening

Founders are now expected to run the company and be its media channel, and most of what they post is forgettable. The few whose voices last built them on proof their customers can verify.

Tom Mackay

Sep 24, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: The Carhartt Playbook

Also: the Sydney Sweeney ad that needed you angry about the wrong thing, Desigual mocking one of the billionaires behind AI, and September's list of nice things.

Tom Mackay

Carhartt got cool by letting a different company do it

Deep Dive

Sep 22, 2026

Carhartt got cool by letting a different company do it

A Swiss licensee chased the culture. The family in Dearborn kept making work jackets. Dickies tried to do both with one brand and lost both audiences.

Tom Mackay

The Weekly Rundown: The mundane is the new flex

The Rundown

Sep 3, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: The mundane is the new flex

Also: why Yayoi Kusama made herself impossible to lose, the aesthetic café brief that's easier than it looks, and the poster Spotify wants you to tear up.

Tom Mackay

The romanticisation of the mundane is not an aesthetic

Opinion

Sep 3, 2026

The romanticisation of the mundane is not an aesthetic

Why restraint, routine and real product use are replacing polished aspiration — and why the brands that understand the shift are finding their best ideas in the ordinary details they already own.

Tom Mackay

Spotify made a poster you're meant to rip up

Campaigns

Aug 31, 2026

Spotify made a poster you're meant to rip up

Fans have been tearing posters off walls for decades. Spotify stopped treating it as damage and built the campaign around it.

Tom Mackay

The Weekly Rundown: How Madhappy escaped the wellness industry

The Rundown

Aug 28, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: How Madhappy escaped the wellness industry

Also: why nobody loses a rap beef anymore, the nice things worth your August, and the positioning line that's really just two people's opinions stapled together.

Tom Mackay

Deep Dive

Aug 27, 2026

Nobody loses a rap beef anymore

Kendrick won everything there was to win. Drake broke Michael Jackson's record two years later. Somewhere between the street corner and the boardroom, the industry worked out how to sell the fight instead of surviving it.

Tom Mackay

The Weekly Rundown: The psychology of gear acquisition syndrome

The Rundown

Aug 20, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: The psychology of gear acquisition syndrome

Also: what everyone's watching women shrink again is really about, the fonts actually worth licensing this month, and the department store that treated bargain hunting as a condition to be treated.

Tom Mackay

JCPenney diagnosed off-price shopping as a form of self-harm and built a retreat to fix it

Campaigns

Aug 19, 2026

JCPenney diagnosed off-price shopping as a form of self-harm and built a retreat to fix it

Six real shoppers, a clothing cleanse and a trust fall later, the department store makes its case for why cheap and reliable aren't the same purchase.

Tom Mackay

The psychology of gear acquisition syndrome

Opinion

Aug 18, 2026

The psychology of gear acquisition syndrome

Why we buy the gear before we do the thing — and how the best brands designed the ladder we climb.

Tom Mackay

The Weekly Rundown: Poppi ditched every wellness convention and won

The Rundown

Aug 12, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: Poppi ditched every wellness convention and won

Also: one ballot, one flesh, why your Wi-Fi in Bali beats your office's, and the billboard Netflix trapped a man in for three days — and it worked.

Tom Mackay

Netflix trapped a man in a billboard for three days and it worked

Campaigns

Aug 11, 2026

Netflix trapped a man in a billboard for three days and it worked

A bathrobe, a stack of books and a whiteboard for talking to the traffic below. The film he was up there advertising had already started streaming without him.

Tom Mackay

The Weekly Rundown: How Nolan stayed the only voice in the room

The Rundown

Aug 6, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: How Nolan stayed the only voice in the room

Also: why BTS said no to a Grammy category built for them, the yoghurt brand that stopped listing what it left out, and the orthopedic shoe ad set during the zombie apocalypse.

Tom Mackay

Inspiration

Aug 4, 2026

How we created a Greek yoghurt brand so delicious, you’ll forget it’s good for you

Meet iLiyo: a new identity, packaging system and website built around pleasure—not the usual language of health food.

Tom Mackay

The Weekly Rundown: How protein stopped being a nutrient and became a marketing number

The Rundown

Jul 30, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: How protein stopped being a nutrient and became a marketing number

Also: purpose is dead and behaviour is the brand, our July list of nice things, and the floor Jamiroquai couldn't afford in 1996.

Tom Mackay

The Weekly Rundown: The business of nostalgia

The Rundown

Jul 23, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: The business of nostalgia

Also: thirteen years of agencies copying the wrong half of the Oatly carton, what holds a global creative agency together when everything wants to fall apart, and Gap's biggest denim launch of the year being one girl on a bedroom floor.

Tom Mackay

Oatly Playbook: how the back of a carton became the most valuable space in the aisle

Deep Dive

Jul 22, 2026

Oatly Playbook: how the back of a carton became the most valuable space in the aisle

Oatly had no media budget, so it printed the advertising on the box. Everyone remembers the wonky logo. The part that actually worked was the writing, and it's the only half nobody has managed to copy.

Tom Mackay

The Weekly Rundown: Clip it or forget bout It

The Rundown

Jul 16, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: Clip it or forget bout It

Also: the five-dollar hair tie Haaland turned into the last believable luxury, the lone-genius myth Daft Punk, Björk and Gaga quietly killed, and La Colombe swearing it's the coffee when it obviously isn't.

Tom Mackay

The Rundown

Jul 2, 2026

The Weekly Rundown: Your brand is probably invisible to half your customers right now

Also: the fantasy of the simple life, June's edit of nice things, and the Wild ad brave enough to finish "drier than a nun's..."

Tom Mackay

Opinion

Jul 2, 2026

Your brand is probably invisible to half your customers right now

How AI quietly became the front door to discovery—and why most brands haven't walked through it yet.

Tom Mackay

Wild Deodorant promises to make you drier than a nun’s 🫢

Campaigns

Jul 1, 2026

Wild Deodorant promises to make you drier than a nun’s 🫢

You don't always have to say it. Let the nun do it.

Tom Mackay

Tom Mackay

The Weekly Rundown: Getting found when AI does the searching

AI search won't wait: BrandViz on the new search era

The Weekly Rundown: Why every founder is posting and almost nobody is listening

Why every founder is posting and almost nobody is listening

The Weekly Rundown: The Carhartt Playbook

Carhartt got cool by letting a different company do it

The Weekly Rundown: The mundane is the new flex

The romanticisation of the mundane is not an aesthetic

Spotify made a poster you're meant to rip up

The Weekly Rundown: How Madhappy escaped the wellness industry

Nobody loses a rap beef anymore

The Weekly Rundown: The psychology of gear acquisition syndrome

JCPenney diagnosed off-price shopping as a form of self-harm and built a retreat to fix it

The psychology of gear acquisition syndrome

The Weekly Rundown: Poppi ditched every wellness convention and won

Netflix trapped a man in a billboard for three days and it worked

The Weekly Rundown: How Nolan stayed the only voice in the room

How we created a Greek yoghurt brand so delicious, you’ll forget it’s good for you

The Weekly Rundown: How protein stopped being a nutrient and became a marketing number

The Weekly Rundown: The business of nostalgia

Oatly Playbook: how the back of a carton became the most valuable space in the aisle

The Weekly Rundown: Clip it or forget bout It

The Weekly Rundown: Your brand is probably invisible to half your customers right now

Your brand is probably invisible to half your customers right now

Wild Deodorant promises to make you drier than a nun’s 🫢

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